


Beyond Description

by kate7h



Category: Vinland Saga (Manga)
Genre: Doctor!Thorfinn, F/M, In Iceland, Sick Character, Sickfic, Waiting to go to Vinland, because why not?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-01
Updated: 2020-01-01
Packaged: 2021-02-27 16:21:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,639
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22069936
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kate7h/pseuds/kate7h
Summary: Throughout their journeys, Thorfinn learns as many skills of a healer as he is able, deciding that if he can save the lives of the sick, maybe it can be a help in atoning for so much life taken.Then Gudrid gets sick as they wait in Iceland to set out for Vinland.
Relationships: Gudrid/Thorfinn (Vinland Saga)
Comments: 3
Kudos: 35





	Beyond Description

**Author's Note:**

> _But we by a love so much refined,  
>  That our selves know not what it is,   
> Inter-assured of the mind,   
> Care less, eyes, lips, and hands to miss.  
> John Donne - A Valediction: Forbidding Mourning ___
> 
> __I had the idea in my head that Thorfinn would be much fulfilled in the role of a doctor or a healer, since he already knows much of wound care from treating himself and growing up on the battlefield. Why not take it a step further to have the skills to help people? Thorfinn is such a good. I can totally see it._ _

Gudrid’s cough was ghastly, one of the worst Thorfinn had heard from a person not dying on a battlefield. So of course he was worried. Especially considering how suddenly it came on. Gudrid had been fine in the morning, but by dinnertime she could barely get in a decent breath. 

His mother told them almost immediately to keep Karli away from her while she was sick. Which Karli had been pretty upset about, but it was more important to keep the child healthy than happy sometimes. He was being cared for by his sister’s family and Einar while Thorfinn tended to his sick wife. 

He sat at her bedside, brushing his hand over her flushed face. This wasn’t the first time he’d tended to the sick at this point, it being something he’d been trying to learn as much about as he could, talking and bartering with every healer and doctor they’d come across. 

_ “Healer?” Einar asked in surprise.  _

_ “Yes,” Thorfinn said as he made the decision to become that. “I know much about wound care from tending to myself for all those years. I’d like to learn more than that- so that we’re bringing those skills with us to Vinland.” _

_ Einar nodded. “Makes sense. But what spurred this on?” _

_ Thorfinn frowned a bit, looking out to the port that they were moored at. There were children playing together at the shore, and the bustle of the town was upbeat and joyous. Healers were something everyone needed. It was even more important than knowing how to thatch a roof or mend a bucket. It dealt with life and death in a way he was unfamiliar with.  _

_ “It’s another attempt to make up for hurting so many,” Thorfinn said solemnly. “If I can save people’s lives, maybe it can add to that creation I want to partake in.” _

_ He sighed, watching the children play. “If I can save as many lives as I have taken, would that make a difference?” _

So that’s what he was attempting. After their travels to Miklagard and back, he had a trunk full of dried herbs, salves, and other medicinal supplies. He’d had the briefest of apprenticeships in Miklagard as he memorized techniques of healers, and recipes of healing balms, all the while working as a merchant to sell off their narwhal horns. He’d treated illness among their crew and in his own adopted child. He’d used their techniques, and developed his own that seemed to work a little better. Experimenting with his past knowledge seemed to have varying results. 

And now, he tended to his own wife. 

Gudrid gagged, beginning to cough again. Quickly, he helped her sit up with a cloth to her mouth, gently rubbing her back as the spell took its course. 

“It’s okay, Gudrid,” he murmured as she coughed. “I know it hurts, but you’re doing very well.”

She continued to cough for a few more minutes before collapsing against him, exhaustion in her. He pressed a kiss to her temple before turning and gently lifting her tunic to press his ear to the skin of her back- to hear her breathing a bit more clearly. 

From what he’d learned and experienced, he knew what a healthy person’s breathing sounded like. Having that as a basis, he could determine a bit more from hearing the lungs of the ill. From what he could tell by listening to her breaths, she sounded rattling, like stones sloshing around in a bucket of water… sort of. There was definitely something in there that was hurting her ability to breathe, but from what he could tell, the coughing itself was improving that. She'd been sick for a few days now, and each day her breathing sounded clearer, if not just a bit. He'd heard the healers and doctors he'd spoken to speak of humors and balancing those, but Thorfinn wasn't sure he'd quite understood the concept. Maybe the fluid in her lungs was one of those, and it wasn't balanced properly. If he recalled correctly, fluid from the lungs was called phlegm. Either way, it was imbalanced, and her body was doing what it could to rid itself of the excess. He figured the best thing to do was help that process.

He pulled away from her back and let her tunic fall into place again, then helped her lie down in the furs once more. She was so out of it, looking around the dim room blearily. He bit his lip before leaning down to listen to her chest after tugging the front of her clothes down enough to press an ear to her skin. This way, he could hear her heart unhindered. It was different than a normal heartbeat, fluttering rapidly and out of pace for the average sound. He shut his eyes, leaning into her a little bit. A sole benefit of working as a healer for your own wife meant there was no discomfort when having to listen to your patient's chest, being so close in someone else's personal space. 

As if to drive in that point, Gudrid's hand found him, her fingers stroking through his hair as he laid against her. For a moment, he could almost pretend that they were simply lying wrapped up with each other, enjoying some affection with one another. But the heat radiating from her skin banished any delusions of that kind of intimacy in the moment. He lifted himself up and stroked his fingers along her face.

_ Even though she's feverish, keeping her warm helps break that…  _ he wasn't sure why that was, but was true again and again. So he pulled the blankets up around her, encouraging her to sweat. And because of that, she was thirsty, so he had her drink a lot of water. Many results of treating such symptoms meant figuring out how to treat the next ones that arose.

"Maybe steam would help the breathing," he muttered, wiping her sweaty bangs from her forehead. 

Gudrid opened her eyes, watching him puzzle. It wasn't the first time he'd treated someone with such a fever and cough, but it still felt like a guessing game where he was putting together the pieces as he went. 

"Steam…?" she said, her voice beyond raspy, coming out as barely a whisper.

He nodded. "Warm and wet air seems to help the lungs clear out the excess phlegm," he said, as much affirming the facts in his own mind as he was clarifying them for her. "Perhaps it would be beneficial for you to have a hot bath." 

She blinked, looking beyond exhausted. "We don't have a…"

"I can borrow a basin from my sister's home," he said, standing from where he'd been sitting beside her. Without wasting much time, he set a large cooking pot of water to boil over the hearth. 

When he returned, he placed the basin close to the fire. He then set to work filling it with the hot water, adding in some cool water from the barrel, not wanting to scald his wife. Gently, he helped Gudrid sit up and disrobe, pulling off the sweaty clothing and then carried her to the water. She hissed at the heat, but he helped her settle into it regardless. She shivered, pulling her knees into her chest as she coughed again. He helped her lie sideways in the water, letting as much of her body be submerged as he placed a bundled up towel at the edge of the basin so she could lean her head against it more comfortably. 

When she was settled, he touched his fingers to her face. “How’s that feel?”

She shivered again. “Still cold…”

He tested his fingers in the water, feeling that it was still fairly close to boiling. He dipped the cloth he had into the water and wrung it out before placing the steaming rag over her exposed skin. Then he did it again with another rag. 

“Just try to breathe as deeply as you’re able,” he murmured, taking the time to wipe her face clean of her sweat with a damp cloth. 

They stayed like that for a long while, Gudrid intermittently coughing as she soaked in the warmth and the steam while Thorfinn added more hot water to her bath. His legs were falling asleep as he knelt beside her for so long, but he didn’t care. With the steam filling the room, her breathing sounded a little easier when he checked with his ear to her back again. He thought if she wasn’t sick, this would’ve been a nice, romantic service to do for her. But she was so sick, and that cold fear pitted in his stomach seeped into any other thoughts he might have. To attempt to take his mind off of those darker things, he helped her clean her hair and then combed it out for her. 

“It’s been some time since the day we met,” he smiled a small smile, stroking the comb through her dark, wet hair as she leaned against the makeshift pillow. “When you cut your hair to get Leif to agree to let you come with us. It’s getting pretty long now.”

She hummed, a smile in her small voice as she did her best to breathe slowly. 

“You made quite the impression on me, you know?” He muttered, the smile still on his face. “It’s not everyday you encounter a woman hiding herself in a barrel and slashing her own hair off.”

“You make me sound crazier than I am…” she whispered, her voice low and rasping. 

“No no,” he smiled a little wider, stroking the comb through once more. “Just the right amount of crazy.”

“You still married me.”

He stopped, letting the smile grow softer. Gently, he wrapped his arms around her from behind, not minding in the slightest that his rolled up sleeves were getting wet. He leaned his face against the side of her head. 

“Of course I did,” he breathed, pressing a kiss to her cheek. “I fell in love with you.”

She brought her hands up, holding his forearms as she relaxed into him. “Even though I’m strange?”

“Because you’re you,” he murmured, repeating her words from all that time ago. When she’d told him why she fell in love in the first place. 

Still, she sighed as she relaxed further, stroking her fingers along his skin. It was quiet after that, the drops from her hair hitting the water’s surface being the only sound to break it. He continued to cling to her, his smile having faded from his face. He felt his heart shutter, that cold fear holding inside him as his mind turned again to the bleakest of circumstances it could.  _ What if she doesn’t get through this… what if she can’t heal…?  _

_ What if she dies…? _

He shivered, shutting his eyes against that harsh reality. They’d only just begun… it hadn’t even been two years since he’d taken her to be his wife… Two years was nothing. It wasn’t enough. How unfair would it be to lose her from his life at their very beginning? He felt a hollow pain in his chest, considering the world with her suddenly gone from it. Without her smiles and laughs, without her just being her brilliant self…. He hated it, despised it with every fiber of his being.

_ I didn’t deserve her in the first place…  _ But he wouldn’t think about it like that. Having Gudrid give her life for some karmic punishment for his own past deeds was deplorable… and it wasn’t a layer of guilt he could bear.

“Gudrid,” he murmured into her neck. “Stay with me, okay?”

Her hand tightened on his arm, gripping him with strength he was sure she didn't have. Her response wasn't in words, but in the small squeeze that told him exactly what she wanted to say.  _ "This is nothing… I'm strong enough to beat this… trust me…"  _

He wasn't sure he could describe what he was feeling to himself, even if it was just in his own thoughts. Even as she laid before him naked in a bath, even as she existed as the most beautiful woman he swore he'd ever seen before… there was something so much deeper than this. Holding her close, kissing her, making love to her, it was all well and good, but he felt something above that somehow. Words couldn't reach it, and touch couldn't grasp it. It was unattainable, and yet, as he embraced her, he felt it in his soul. 

He'd had plenty of time to consider what love was, at her rather sudden confession of it- of that affection; her infatuation. He never regretted accepting that affection, and he did his best to reciprecrate it, even if it was poorly at times. But did affection, infatuation, and intimacy truly describe what love is? Or was it as unattainable as the golden paradise of his dreams sometimes seemed to be? Would he ever be able to describe the gentle feelings within his heart for this sweet and wonderful woman? Perhaps it was beyond him, perhaps he just wasn't smart enough to figure it out. All he knew was that it would be like the world ending… to lose her from his life now, having brought her into his heart so intimately. It would be beyond devastating, and he wondered if he could recover from it. Einar had loved Arnheid with his whole heart, and when he'd lost her, it seemed like a piece of his cheerfulness had as well. A piece of him had likely been left in the place on the hill where they'd buried her… Thorfinn wondered if he'd truly understand Einar's heart if he were to lose his own love.

"Thorfinn," Gudrid's voice was hardly audible. "I'm with you."

He blinked, surprised coming over him.

"Don't worry," she rasped, her hand tightening further on his arm. "I'll never leave your side. You said you needed me, right?"

Half of her words were barely the rasp of air, but he made out most of it. That stillness came over him again, a gentle calm which always accompanied her unending love for him. Whether it be her sweet affections, or her earnest words, the feeling it inspired was always the same… and he was always moved.

He shut his eyes, holding her tighter. "I did… I did say that."

"So I won't leave you," Gudrid whispered, leaning her head against his. "Promise."

"You…" he murmured, turning to kiss her neck, trailing kisses up to her face. "You're truly are remarkable."

She laughed, coughing and coughing again as a result. When she calmed moments later, she leaned against his touch once more. "Besides, no illness is gonna get me… I'm gonna die an old woman on the open seas."

"Yes, yes," Thorfinn smiled, letting his eyes close once more after the fit. "That sounds fitting for you."

Whether the definition mattered much in the end or not, he wasn't sure. What he did know was that he had no regrets in marrying this amazing woman who'd run head-first into his life. He loved her more than he could comprehend. And he would heal her as best as he could, then leave the rest to her strength and determination. It was the very least he could do in the wake of everything she'd done for him. She'd given him love, family, a home in her arms, and a bit of peace to his soul. He'd always be grateful, knowing full well that there was nothing he could ever do to repay her.

He pressed a kiss to her cheek, hugging her tight. 

"I may not do everything right," he breathed softly. "But I love you more than I have words to say."

“It’s enough,” Gudrid breathed. “You’re always enough.”

**Author's Note:**

> I hope you enjoyed this!! Please leave a comment! Thank you so much for reading, and I will see you guys next time!


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